By the time I arrived in the US, Dad was out of danger. So I took the rare opportunity to go up to Duluth with my sister Sue, on her way back from seeing Dad, for a short visit. Sue has become an amazing gardener,
with garden tours of her extensive gardens,
and a plant sale every spring. I used to garden extensively too, so we have a deep love of gardening in common, as well as the experience of being on garden tours and potting up and labeling hundreds of plants every spring to sell.
Here are some of the leftover plants from this year's plant sale,
and some peonies in bloom in her garden:
Her husband Dean had built a lovely outdoor cat cage
for cat lovers. He was asking only $55 for it.
It is a wonderful solution for cat owners who are afraid of letting their cats outside for fear of them getting attacked by a dog, or run over by a car. They may still have it. If you are interested, send me an e-mail.
I showed Sue my suitcase full of embroidered items from Srinagar, and she wants to help market them in Duluth!!! I am so very grateful for her offer. She has been making quilts and clothes and teddy bears and many other needle crafts for many years, and will soon be having her own craft show and sale, so she knows what sells. In a couple of weeks she will be receiving some samples of new embroidery ideas to assist the disabled embroiderers in Kashmir. This should be very interesting.
After my visit with Sue and Dean, I took a shuttle bus back down to the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) to sister Sandy and Patrick's house. Sandy saw me walk past her pink flowering bush in my Kashmiri clothes, and just had to get a photo - the colours were perfect.
Dad kindly let me use his car during my visit to the US. Sandy and Patrick had driven it back to their house so I could pick it It really came in handy!!
I used it to get to presentations, to pick up and haul medical equipment, to bring Kashmir embroidered items around to others, and most importantly, to visit family and friends I have not seen in quite a while, and would not have been able to without a car.
So I hopped into this huge comfy car and headed off to Algona, Iowa to see how Dad was doing, and help as best I could. Northern Iowa. Flatland. Corn. Soybeans. Wind Generators.
Hog confinements. And some of the most wonderful people anywhere. A place I called home for 2 and a half years, before beginning my nomadic life.
Dad was in the Good Samaritan nursing home in Algona, Iowa, just up the hill from his apartment, Van Buren Terrace. It was part of the Good Sam complex, so made it relatively easy for Dad to switch from the apartment to the nursing home.
Van Buren Terrace is the congregate living facility he had been living in since 2006. It allows people to live there who are 55 and over, but does not allow subletting. So I applied for and was given permission to live in his apartment for a month. It was heavenly!!! I walked in, closed and locked the door behind me, and could just feel the energy start flowing back into my system. Solitude is what restores me, I have learned on this journey, and if I go too long without it, it shows.
It soon became obvious that Dad would not be able to live on his own again in his apartment, so with his approval I gave notice. But what to do with his furniture? Where
would he go after the nursing home? He might move into assisted living, where he could have his furniture. So it would be premature to sell it off. Storage. That's the ticket. But where? Algona, or closer to family? All these questions.... Eventually the family decided that Dad's grandson Nick could use Dad's furniture until he needed it, and the rest would go into storage in Lake City, the same town as my sisters Pat and Carol live in. So Carol
and her husband Mike and their son Nick came to load up Dad's furniture and his clothes, etc. and take them away. I arranged for the truck, and boxed everything up before they arrived.
We got the truck all loaded in one day, and when they left, the apartment echoed. I still had another week to go, before taking Dad up north to Stillwater. So I slept on an air mattress on the floor, and had a folding table and a chair. The luxury of having all of Dad's furniture was lovely. After all the furniture was removed, the apartment felt very peaceful. Good for meditating, and living simply. I could really see and enjoy the light coming into the room.
During my month in Algona, I was very busy (no one will be surprised by this). Updating my blog with all the adventures in Kashmir, visiting Dad and doing all the things one does to help an elderly parent in the nursing home, organising and givine presentations, seeing my friends in Algona. Here is a photo of Patti, my friend who sent the care package to me in Kashmir:
One of the key items on my 'to do' list while in Algona was figuring out how to scan hundreds of 35mm slides from my previous travels around the world. Now was the time to do something with them, as my friend who was storing them safely in a humidity and temperature controlled environment was selling her business. They had to go! I tried scanning them myself with a scanner sister Sue had given me. The quality was not good enough. So I researched and selected
Fotobridge to scan them for me. They did a good job, and their customer service people were great. Ah, all those amazing memories and photos safe at last. And the original slides are tucked under two different sisters' beds. I may need them someday for a book. One never knows. But if they disappear now, I have a single CD to replace them.
During my stay in Iowa I took a trip over to Anamosa, Iowa to see my sister Sharon and her family, and give a presentation at their church. There doesn't seem to be much of a recession in southeastern Iowa. Jeff, who has a lawnmowing and landscaping business, was busier than ever. Much of his work was replacing retaining walls, though, from last year's floods and this year's heavy rains. That is one job that homeowners don't often want to tackle on their own. And Jeff's walls last. Goes to show that when you do a good job, people will find out.
They had put in a new type of water feature as a display at their house. A 50 foot long stream with a pool at the bottom.
The stream and pool stayed empty until the pump was turned on, so there was no danger of children drowning in the pool at the bottom, and the water stayed free of algae. Hmmm. Good idea. It is expensive, but very beautiful. Sharon and Jeff say they have eaten outside more this year than any other year, because of the stream and waterfall and the lovely sound of water rushing over the rocks. There it is again - humans' love of water in all its forms.
When they eat outside, they nearly always have s'mores, graham crackers with toasted marshmallow and chocolate. Way too sweet for me now. And even as kid, I could only eat one of them. Kalli, one of Sharon and Jeff's daughters, is showing hers for a photo.
Sharon is kindly taking care of all the orders placed in Anamosa - at the church, at the coffee shop, etc. Couldn't do it without her!
A week after Dad's apartment was emptied, it was time to bring him up north to a different nursing home in Red Wing, Minnesota. Dad had decided that he preferred to be closer to family than his friends in Algona, so we made the move. Pat had made the arragements, and I brought Dad up and got him settled in. He is there now, and I can e-mail him and the staff will print out an e-mail and a photo per day for him. This is a much better way for me to stay in touch with him, because in the nursing home now he rarely picks up his phone. I stayed overnight in Lake City with Pat, and we got in a game of Scrabble and had a lovely visit, and she made a generous financial donation to the Hope Centre.
I am very blessed to have such wonderful sisters. I have seen a number of families get torn apart when the parents have aged. Disagreements over care, over money, over independence of the parent, etc etc. My sisters and I are determined not to let this happen to us. Everyone has chipped in to help as much as they can, based on geography, family, and work situations. It hasn't been without its challenges, but it is working well so far.
I continued north from Lake City through Red Wing again, to Hastings, visiting my friends Arlene and Bob, and their cat Chairman Mao. Chairmain Mao was a very skinny, starving stray that I took in one night just before leaving Algona. In late November, 2006. He was the most grateful cat I have ever met. It happened that Bob and Arlene visited me the next day. I told them about the cat, and my concerns for it, because there was no animal shelter in Algona at the time, and I knew of no one who would want a cat. They decided to take him home with them! And Bob named him Chairman Mao.
I stayed at my friend Michele's house for a few days, while she and her daughter were on a mother-daughter camping weekend. Michele has created a lovely front yard garden which everyone enjoys. Her driveway gets converted into a lovely outdoor patio every summer.
My friend Ellen came by for lunch on the patio.
She bought many of Kashmiri embroidery samples I brought with me. But she wasn't going to get to enjoy them until September, because I wanted to show others what I had to place orders.
There was a Chinese girl student staying with Michele and her family, and while I was there she and her Chinese friends took over the kitchen and made Hot Pot - it was an all day meal. Very interesting.
They kindly made a vegetarian option for me. Lots of cilantro. Yummy! And rice, which i was beginning to miss from Kashmir.
During a visit to the Twin Cities, I really wanted to have breakfast at Al's breakfast in Dinkytown. I asked sister Sandy to come with me. She had never been there before. We had a delightful breakfast, though I couldn't convince Doug to juggle a raw egg, a bottle of ketchup, and a pancake for the customers like he did once years ago. After breakfast, I took Sandy home the long way, and showed her some of the delights of the Twin Cities she had not seen before.
The
Joan of Art gallery on Franklin Ave by the Mississippi River:
And the lovely historical homes on
Milwaukee Avenue, nearby.
I visited my former neighbor and friend Laura in St. Paul. She is another avid gardener, and we lived next door to each other for 20 years! We had a great time walking the neighborhood, checking out the gardens, and she filled me in on what has changed in the neighborhood since I left in 1996. One thing that has changed is that chickens are allowed!! Here was a chicken coop in someone's front yard. One of the kind on wheels, so you can move it around the yard.
Laura's son
Micah is a rower, paddler, and came home from the 2008 China Olympics with a bronze medal.
Mom and dad are understandably proud!!
Before leaving my former neighbourhood, I stopped by to see Ann and Paul Brey, brother and sister who have lived in their family's home for a very long time. We had a delightful reunion, because I had not stopped in to see them since I left for New Zealand in 1997. And I wasn't sure who would come to the door when I knocked. But they were both there, and both just the same as when I had left.
Remarkable!!! They had been very very kind to me in the past, and are both such dear, sweet souls. No internet for them, so I will stay in touch in other ways.
I returned to Algona for one more week, and stayed with my friends Kathy and Dave Gerber, who are corn and soybean farmers out on the prairie - big sky country.
I was busy by this time with medical equipment for Kashmir, but had time to help out on the farm one morning. Some corn had made it into a soybean field intended for seed crop.
It had been sprayed to kill it, but still looked unsightly - especially to a farmer!
So Kathy and I
went out and cut and pulled the corn out.
Now, nice and tidy.
No more embarrassing corn in the soybean field.
Then it was off to Wisconsin! First I visited some friends who used to live in Algona, and moved to Wisconsin - Janette and Dan and their children.
Janette (seated), is Filipino. I met her at the county fair in Algona in 2005, where I had a booth to promote my business consulting. She told me that
Buena Vista University was looking for people to teach business classes. I followed up on it, and taught 2 classes the following year, Principles of Marketing and Business Policy and Strategy.
We had a short but lovely visit, and she gave me some gifts to bring to the folks in Kashmir when I return. If you have ever seen or heard the wind chimes on my bike, they came from Janette. She grew up in a very poor family in the Philippines, and is now an attorney, and a department head at a major insurance company. She and Dan met in the Philippines. A remarkable family.
They live not far from my cousin Lynne and her husband Hank, in New Berlin, Wisconsin. My next stop. I had not seen them for several years. Since my last visit, Hank had gotten involved in radio controlled gasoline powered airplanes.
He told me how much training you need to have to fly them, and all the safety precautions for the owners and the audience when they are flown. People could be killed.
My father used to fly them as a young man.
Lynne showed me how she had organized her sewing and crafts.
I was very impressed.
During my travels, I sometimes find myself helping individuals and organisations get organised, and I really like the system Lynne had. Plus, I have have had boxes in storage myself several times in my life so far. The plastic boxes are relatively transparent, so you can see what is in the box without an extensive labeling system. And they are individually accessible. You don't have to unload all the top boxes to get at the bottom one.
When she was showing me her system, we heard a noise inside one of the walls in this room, which was also the guest bedroom. Critters living inside the wall, we thought. But that night, when I went to bed, I heard it again. And whatever it was, it was not living in the wall. It was clearly trapped. For 10 minutes at a time, I would hear the squirrel or mouse or whatever it was jump up, and its claws scratching the wall on the way back down. Over and over, until it tired, and then an hour later it would do it again for another 10 minutes. My pillow was right next to the wall where it was trapped, so I awoke every time. What could I do? I resolved that whatever it cost, I would have to find a way to open up the wall and get it out, and pay for whatever damage it caused. I willed the little creature to rest, and stop jumping, that I would get it out in the morning, and please save your energy. It didn't work. But my morning it was much less active. But I could tell still alive. So as soon as I heard Lynne's husband Hank up and about in the house, I went to him and asked if he would be willing to help me get it out. They get mice and squirrels in their roof and house a lot where they live, and they do a lot of damage to the wiring in the house, so he was not overly enthused about the idea of cutting a hole in the wall to save a creature he kills many of every year. Even if I was willing to pay to have it neatly sealed up again. So he took the dog for a walk, and to my relief and gratitude, came up from the basement with a drill with a circular hole saw attachment. Yes!!!!
Hank used an infrared heat detector and a stud finder to pinpoint the location of the trapped critter, and proceeded to cut a hole in the wall. When he had finished, he put his gloved hand in and pulled out lots of insulation. It which shouldn't have been there because it was in inside wall. Along with the insulation were the skeletons of 7 small animals, however. This was clearly not the first time a creature had been trapped in this spot!
Once the insulation was out, Hank got a small flashlight inside, and saw that the current trapped animal was a mouse. I got a look at it when it briefly poked its head out the hole. A tiny field mouse with the cutest face!
It was too quick for me to get a photo. This photo is from the Internet.
Hank got a pair of tongs, and was able to get a hold of it, but he didn't want to hurt it, so was holding it gently with the tongs, and the mouse escaped. And then it left the hole and scampered across Hank's hand and over my foot and disappeared under the storage containers. Oh oh. Now we have a mouse in the house, and not in the wall. So over breakfast, we broke the news to Lynne, who is not a fan of mice either, and I went online and researched live traps for mice. We were about to go buy one, when we discovered that their dog, Hunter (aptly named) had found and dispatched the mouse. So, the little mouse died a quick, natural death, rather than a prolonged and painful death in the wall, which was a good thing. And Lynne and Hank said they would buy the live mouse traps that can hold up to 15 mice to put in their attic, instead of laying out poison for them. Another good thing. So this little mouse was a catalyst to save many future mice from death by poisoning - at least by poisoning in Lynne and Hank's attic, anyway. And the hole in the wall might remain as a removable plug for future unfortunate mice who fall into that corner of the wall. Personally I would love to see a little handle put on it to make it easy to remove. I am very grateful for Hank's indulging my compassion for animals in this way. Thank you, Hank.
We had another couple of days together, and then it was time to head out again. I am constantly saying hello and goodbye to friends and family in this life. But I know I will see everyone again - if not on this side, than the other side. Speaking of which, the day I arrived Lynne was sorting through books - spiritual books that had belonged to her mother, my aunt Marjorie. I was very happy to be able to have some of Marjories books, and look forward to gradually reading them. One which I read right away was
The Place We Call Home - Exploring the Soul's Existence after Death, by Robert J. Grant. Wow! There are many revelations and confirmations in this book. I will share one with you:
"As Dr. Ritchie illustrated, the souls that find themselves in the shadowlands or the earthbound realms after death are not being punished or condemned by any force or power except of their own making. The inner life creates the outer world of our existence after death. If we have spend a lifetime of holding grudges, harboring resentments, being prejudicial in our thnking, acting out of jealousy or hate or malice, those thoughts collectively form the bulding blocks that create a home in the shadowlands, the hellish realms. In accordance with universal law, that which we think, we become; that which we build, we move into. "
A very important reminder that we are here to learn to love everyone unconditionally. To forgive. To live in harmony. To put aside anger. To live according to the guidance of Jesus, Mohhamad, Buddha, Krishna. Many books on near death experiences have been written, but almost none of them discuss anything negative about the experience. This book covers the negative things that can happen at death to people who choose darkness over light, anger over forgiveness. It also explains very precisely how it is that some souls hang around earth, and what all of us can do to help them. Prayer after someone dies is especially helpful to those who have recently passed. An Edgar Cayce quote in the book reaffirms this:
"Prayer for those who are seeking a way, the way to the Light, aids ever. As ye meditate - as ye pray - for as thy body is indeed the temple of he living God, there He hath promised to meet thee...pray that there may be the light, the help needed, that they (the deceased) may be guided in the way and manner which will bring all together in the way as He, thy Lord, would have it."
Heading back toward Minnesota, I stopped to see my friend Sherry in Luck, Wisconsin. Sherry had an close call healthwise this past year, and was recovering from successful surgery. She was going to be fine, she has a wonderful man to look after her, and I am very very happy for her.
More friends, more lovely times, and then it was time to visit Dad one more time and then get on a plane to visit relatives in Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington.
Posts
Leaving Hamilton, I continued my way south to Masterton. It was spring, spring, glorious spring. The many lovely shades and tints of green compelled me to stop and take this photo, even though there was no blue sky anywhere. It had been raining for days. I couldn't wait for the sun to appear.
She was happy to sell some Wairarapa trading vouchers to me - at the current exchange rate of $1 NZ per 1 voucher. It so helps to show people a real life example of alternative currencies,
when the conversation turns to our unsustainable financial system (especially the US currency).
As she was talking to me, something told me to videotape her. She agreed, and I proceeded to make a movie of Helen discussing the basics of alternative currency. Here is the link to the YouTube video of Helen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9ChKqC78tg
Anneleise was recently hired to promote the new currency in the Wairarapa district. Best wishes, Anneleise!!
The air was filled with birdsong, 
and the campground had many lovely trees
and shrubs in bloom. 
